


perfect pretenders

by eloquent



Category: 15th Century CE RPF, Historical RPF, The White Princess (TV), The White Queen (TV), Winter King: Henry VII and the Dawn of Tudor England - Thomas Penn
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Developing Relationship, F/M, Family Feels, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Mutual Pining, Strangers to Lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-04
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2021-02-24 15:29:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21640216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eloquent/pseuds/eloquent
Summary: “I’m just tired of people looking at me.”“And you thought”, he says, looking over his smeared glasses at her drastic change in appearance as though he is trying to draw a direct correlation between the two things, “this would help?”On her twentieth birthday, Lizzie York is desperate for change. Henry Tudor is prepared to help her find it. Modern AU.
Relationships: Elizabeth of York Queen of England/Henry VII of England
Comments: 10
Kudos: 48





	1. Chapter 1

**_LIZZIE YORK’S FASHION EVOLUTION IN 20 PHOTOS_ **

_As one of Britain’s youngest style icons turns twenty, British VOGUE is celebrating by looking back on some of her most memorable moments. From_ that _iconic rose inspired front cover to her enviable blonde tresses, we’ll break down what makes the oldest York daughter’s look so effortless and how you can channel it._

*****

There is a terrible chiming like a toddler bashing a xylophone followed by a long ring that makes her nightstand shake. Lizzie rolls onto her stomach and clamps a throw pillow over her ears, convinced it’s tangled up in some nightmarish dream. No one, not even the devil himself, could possibly think to phone her in the middle of the night.

One eye cracks open. To her relief there is nothing but darkness, the heavy cloak of midwinter, and just as soon as it came the vibration dies away. Sluggish, she pulls the covers up to her face, ready for the black to swallow her up again. And then:

 _Bzzzzzzzzzzz._ _Bzzzzzzzzzzz. Bzzzzzzzzzzz._

Muffled through the wall, someone hollers “Answer it Lizzie!” in a pitch high enough to shatter glass. Cecily. Not for the first time does she wish she shared a flat with anyone but her sister but beggars can’t be choosers.

With a groan she flings out a hand and scrambles for her phone, blue light bathing her bedroom walls.

> **Mum <3: **5 missed calls
> 
> **Mum <3:** 3 unread messages.
> 
> **Subject:** “WE NEED TO TALK!! XX”
> 
> 2 photo messages attached.

She hovers over the screen with hesitant fingers before she types in her stupidly simple passcode that any fool could guess if they wanted to: her birthday.

She squints to see the offending photos on the screen, suddenly feeling as though her bedframe has collapsed under her and left her lying winded on the floor.

_No, no, no._

Grainy and pixelated though they are, and clearly taken on the move, the damage is obvious, like someone has taken a Sharpie to the Mona Lisa or a sledgehammer to the statue of David.

Utter panic sets in, heart leaping in her ribcage like a songbird throwing itself against the bars of its cage. The plink-plonk tune plays out again like a carnival waltz and she wants to throw her phone to the floor, smash the screen or plunge it in a pool of water until the screen goes black. It buzzes again, vibrating deep into her hands, spreading up her forearms.

It could all still be a dream she thinks, squeezing her eyes shut. She’ll wake up with her cheeks rough on the pillowcase with a shock to the heart in a moment or two.

She doesn’t.

Feet heavy and clumsy, she heads to the bathroom instead, feeling for door handles and light switches in the darkness. A sense of doom hangs overhead, pushes her along at a pace too quick to follow.

Behind her, the landing light switches on, her eyes straining to adjust. Cecily stands in the doorway, hugging herself in a pair of rumbled pyjamas,.

“For Christ’s sake! Who’s phoning at this hour?”

With a sick feeling, Lizzie meets her reflection in the mirror and realises this is the moment she’s supposed to wake up, sheets twisted around her legs and forehead damp before realising none of it was real with a thwack to the head. _Silly me! What was all that about?_

Instead she sees herself, all soft blue shadows under the eyes, smatter of blemishes above the brow and smudged eyeliner, unrecognisable as the Lizzie York that grew up on magazine covers dressed in white and holding her newest sibling in her arms. Elizabeth York; English rose, heiress to one of Britain’s leading financial firms, darling of the family.

But none of this is what has her mother up in arms.

She looks down at her feet, at the tiled floor strewn with damp towels, the sink cluttered with empty product boxes and then the hands clutching the basin, palms stained blue-black like a writer whose pen has leaked over their fingers. Finally, only when her fingers reach to grasp the strands of hair that brush her jaw does she allow the photos her mother sent to match up with the person before her.

Her hair, cropped to her ears in a mess of chunks and tufts that stick out at odd angles, is box black, flat and lifeless with patches of sunshine blonde in between. The strands between her fingers are crisp, acrid smelling, a far cry from the soft curls that fell past her waist only yesterday, what her father liked to call ‘spun gold’. Hair worthy of a floating halo and subject of many an article, like Cosmopolitan’s “10 Reasons Why Lizzie York Should Be Your Inspiration To Go Blonde This Summer”.

No going back, no reversal.

Cecily meets her eyes in the mirror, mouth an ‘o’ of horror as her phone pings again with a text reading “CALL ME AS SOON AS YOU GET THIS! XX”

“Holy shit.”

*****

Ten minutes of pacing and tea brewing pass and another five of hysterical laughter follow. They run through every possible excuse known to man, like they’re about to face a police interrogation – Don’t remember how it happened (partially true). This is what’s in right now (lie). I’m an idiot (obviously).

In the end, Cecily decides, blue stained palms up in surrender, flat out denial may be the safest option.

All the while Lizzie’s phone has been making a racket, notifications flying in from all the messaging apps known to man. iMessage, email, Facebook messenger, WhatsApp, all with the same caps lock message and passive aggressive kisses tacked on the end. Even smothered under the pile of blackened towels it is relentless, screaming to be picked up. There is no space to think, their excuses frantic and fevered like criminals conspiring with their heads together.

Finally, on the twentieth missed call, the inevitable cannot be ignored any longer. Lizzie picks up, teeth clenched.

“Hi Mum—“

_“I cannot believe you Elizabeth!”_

If the lucid bathroom lighting, slurp of coffee and splash of cold water on her face had all failed to pull her from the too-much-to-drink the night before stupor, then her mother’s voice had succeeded, dragging her kicking and screaming into consciousness. Just her name is enough to shift the bleary surroundings into focus, the sink glaringly white, floor tiles an ugly mosaic of blue and green. Elizabeth is chilling enough, let alone starting a phone call without a string of endearments. _Darling_ , _sweetheart_ , _love_ , all of the usual trinkets.

She is really in it then. This is all real.

Suddenly she can’t help but see an element of truth in the stories her mother spun about being descended from a water goddess. Why else would the cold fury trickling through the phone feel like ice water being poured down her back? She curses herself for the tears that jump to her eyes. It is, she reminds herself, swiping angrily at her eyes with the cuff of her sleeve, the burden of being a Pisces and subsequently, an overemotional drunk.

“Mum,” she says, smearing last night’s mascara over her eyelids. “I really don’t want to speak about this right now.”

“Well I’m sorry that I disrupted your beauty sleep but this is something that just can’t wait. How am I supposed to react when I see pictures of you looking like this? From the media no less! How could you even _think_ of doing that to yourself?”

“She wasn’t thinking about it, that’s the problem,” Cecily says cheerily with a resulting smack to to the elbow from Lizzie. Most of her anger though goes to the other end of the line, the sensation of being pushed into a corner creeping up on her.

“How did you even get those photos in the first place?” she snaps.

A moment passes before she hears the venom in her voice. She prides herself on never letting anger get the better of her but she is her mother’s daughter and the Woodvilles aren’t exactly known for keeping their mouths shut. Besides, she already knows the answer: their PR have eyes everywhere. Her mouth rapidly forms an apology but her mother continues as though she hasn’t heard, some kind of internal monologue playing out over the line.

“Christ, what’ll your father say about this? And don’t even get me started on your grandmother, that’ll be a conversation and a half. And who’ll be getting the blame? Me of course, always the bad mother–“

As her voice shifts into something shrill and unpleasant and all too reminiscent of a vulture tearing at its prey, Lizzie covers the receiver and turns to Cecily with a pained expression. _Help._ She just shrugs, wise beyond her years. 

“Told you she wouldn’t be happy.”

“Oh shut up, this is your fault too.” Lizzie replies, tearing at the tender skin around her thumb, hissing when she gets too close to the quick.

“Hey! Do you want this fixed or not?” Cecily asks, a pair of glittering silver scissors between her thumb and forefinger.

Lizzie gives her a dirty look in the way only sisters can, crossing her arms across her chest with a _hmph_ , letting the phone drop into her lap and her mother’s stream of consciousness buzz unanswered against her side.

“That’s what I thought” Cecily says, smiling sweetly as she snips the hair at the nape of her neck.

To ignore the nausea that washes over her in horrible waves, Lizzie watches the dark hair drift to the floor in a lazy summer afternoon way, truly looking at herself for the first time without wincing.

Her hair looks as if it’s been set alight, like a match set to paper until it is nothing but crumbling ash. Oddly enough it even smells burnt, or maybe that’s just what the dye smells like, dry and noxious with a hint of coconut conditioner. Like that was going to help.

With a satisfied smile it dawns on her that she looks nothing like a York, all fair and golden and good looks. It is a relief more than anything else and the more she looks the more optimistic she feels. If she didn’t look the part, perhaps she didn’t have to act it either.

On the other end of the phone, the garbled speech grows increasingly strangled. She puts it on speaker and to her dismay finds her mother on the same dreaded subject.

“Elizabeth! Are you listening to me?” she asks, the question posed all the more threatening now it bounces off the bathroom walls for them both to hear. The image on the other end of the line is a scary one: narrowed green eyes and a manicured hand smoothing out the wrinkles she claims her children have caused.

“Mm” she replies, fingertips pressed to her forehead. “Was just thinking.”

And like another shower of cold water, she replies “Ever the dreamer. I thought you’d hung up on me love.”

(Elizabeth Woodville-York is a woman of many shades, one moment cool and serpentine, the next tender and dripping with adoration. It occurs to Lizzie that this is why people were so quick to say she had bewitched her father and why her father had fallen so hard for her in the first place.)

“This isn’t the conversation to have over the phone. I’m coming round okay? Inspect the damage myself, see what can be done.”

 _What if there isn’t anything to be done?_ Lizzie thinks. But all she says is:

“I don’t think there’s any fixing this.”

“Where there’s a will there’s a way. And there is always a way.”

*****

It is slowly coming back to her, with Cecily prompting whenever the story draws a blank.

Her birthday dinner, a tableau vivant of perfection. It was, in many ways, no different from their dinners at home: her father raising a toast full of hyperbole (“to our Lizzie, the rose that blooms the brightest”) as various dishes were placed before them – sweet gateaux, tender meat falling off the bone, champagne bubbling on the tip of the tongue. Everything from the swanky setting to the priceless freshwater pearls dangling from her lobes was over the top and it was all for her.

Lizzie’s favourite restaurant, Lizzie’s favourite meal, Lizzie sat at the top of the table. She listened to her sisters prattle about school, her father talk of the firm’s future prospects and her role in them and watched her mother nod and agree and it all made her want to keel over, her heart long to be anywhere else. She may as well have been watching herself from a table in the corner, wondering what the hell she was doing there, she was so detached from her surroundings.

At one point she excused herself to the bathroom and clutched the sides of the sink, breathing hard. She turned the tap and ran the water up to her elbows, wet skin glistening like a pair of princess’s gloves. Listening to the roar of water spraying and spitting on the sides of the bowl was one of the only times she believed her mother’s watery tales.

“Get it together Lizzie. _Smile_ ,” she muttered, stretching her mouth into a wobbling line that could convince no one, not even a camera lens, of happiness. She smoothed the wrinkles on her dress front and was about to return to her expectant audience when Cecily poked her head round the door.

“You alright? Mum’s asking after you.”

“Never better.”

Cecily raised an eyebrow, unconvinced.

“You don’t have to keep up the act in front of me you know. It’s no fun.”

She could’ve cursed her right there and then for her kindness. Everything she had done to compose herself threatened to come undone, like pulling a hairpin out of an elaborate updo, hair tumbling down over her shoulders.

“Lizzie?”

“I’m _fine_ Cecily, really.”

Brown eyes searched her own. When she saw she wasn’t going to get anything more she sighed and came through the door to wrap her sister in a hug and before she could blink, she was tucked in at the table again. The restaurant lights dimmed and the waitress brought out a tiered cake smattered with pink candles, flickering with such purpose that she could’ve cried with the beauty of it. As her family crooned Happy Birthday, she took a breath in the momentary hush, just her, the halo of light and the strange stretched shadows they cast, and she let it consume her, just for a moment.

Over her shoulder, her mother whispered “Make a wish darling” green eyes glowing with pride. So she did. She squeezed her eyes shut and wished hard. Wished she knew what she wanted beyond what was offered. Wished she knew who she was beyond the name York. Wished so hard she didn’t even realise the flame had turned to curled smoke and her family were clapping and whooping in a roar.

So she grinned wildly for photos until her cheeks spasmed while her father slapped her on the back and her mother peppered her cheeks with kisses but the sickly icing only turned her stomach and wisps of smoke caught in her throat. Only Cecily saw her picking at her cake slice and sidled up to her seat, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

“We’re going out, you and me.”

“What, now?” It was past midnight and everything ached. Nothing sounded worse than traipsing out in the cold in heels.

Cecily just flashed her bright smile, that York smile that won round even the bitterest of enemies.

“Why not? You’re only twenty once and I want you to enjoy yourself – for _real_.”

Lizzie wavered for a moment, weighing up the options. She could get a taxi home, wrap herself up in her duvet and watch a film, drink some of the wine she’d been saving for a special occasion and try her hardest to forget most of the evening’s events. Or, though every instinct in her body was telling her no, she could let herself be dragged out for a couple hours of ‘fun’ with Cecily, which would most likely result in her carrying her home at four with a headache and a sour taste in her mouth.

But when has ignoring your gut ever gone wrong?

“Oh go on then,” she sighed, biting back her first smile of the evening and linking arms with her sister who squealed in response.

“ _Yes!_ Come on, I’ll text Joan and Maggie and we can get a few drinks.”

A few turned into a few more, and then some. The four of them sat in a booth, howling Happy Birthday over drinks. At some point, in a voice not entirely her own, she’d asked _It’s the way to ring in a birthday isn’t it, a makeover?_ and her companions were only too eager to agree, sloshing their drinks about and pulling up inspiration on Pinterest. A rush of adrenaline shot through her as they pushed back their chairs and set off down the road, clutching each other for support. _This is the next day of the rest of my life_ , she thought, like some cheesy desktop wallpaper.

Trawling through the shelves in the beauty section of Tesco was murkier, Cecily tossing boxes of hair dye into the shopping basket and missing most of the time, Maggie hankering after instant noodles and while Joan tried to persuade her to hurry up and catch the last bus back. _Insert cash or select payment type_ and otherworldly overhead lighting that whitewashed everything into a dull, sickening roar. After that is only fragments like a shattered looking glass: clutching a wonky golden braid in her fist, chest heaving, feeling like the female protagonist in a rom-com who stops eating ice-cream by the tub and is suddenly able to balance all the shitty things that life keeps throwing at her. All she needed was two men fighting over her for no apparent reason. She felt _good_ , like a snake shedding its skin. No stopping to gnaw her fingernails down to the quick about what others thought of her, what she thought of herself. No doubt, no questions. This second decade of life would be hers and hers alone, starting with the colour of her hair.

 _“Now,”_ The YouTube tutorial playing from her phone propped up against shampoo bottles and abandoned perfumes certainly seemed to agree. _“You want to make sure you’re applying the dye from the roots down. I’ve sectioned off my hair into layers just to be sure but if you miss a spot or two, you can always go back in.”_

It was a miracle she managed to mix the chemicals and pigment together, let alone attempt to reach the back of her head.

“I’ve got you Lizzie,” Cecily assured her, swooping into the bathroom with one eye drooping shut. “Let the master go to work”.

At around five, when Lizzie had finally scrubbed off the dye that had found itself on the shell of her ear and smeared across her forehead and neck, she decided she and Cecily were deserving of a cuppa. Going to the corner shop for a pint of milk looking like she’d just been scalped seemed like the best idea in the world.

Back in a tick she sing-songed to her sister who was slumped over the sofa, half-asleep. She was back within ten minutes, unknowingly caught on camera, and forgot all about the tea, managing to shove the milk in the fridge before collapsing into bed in her clothes from the night before.

Heavy-lidded and exhilarated, she smiled into her pillow. _Happy Birthday to me._

*

After fifteen minutes exactly, her mother’s voice crinkles through the intercom, tone giving absolutely nothing away much to Lizzie's distress.

‘It’s Mum, darling.’

Freshly showered but feeling none of the effects, she slopes down the corridor with what remains of her hair wrapped in a towel to find her mother already stood in the kitchen like the eye of a hurricane.

Seeing the state of their kitchen only adds to her embarrassment. It is laughable how out of place her mother seems amongst her chaos: dye-stained towels shoved on top of the laundry bags to her pristine cream coat, multiple stone-cold cups of tea on the counter to her fresh manicure, dirty tea spoons and drips strewn over top with a trail of sugar following. She wants to whip out the marigolds and Flash spray but it feels all too late.

“Tea?” she says instead, darting to the kettle.

“No thank you darling. I’m not staying for long, I’ve got a meeting in half an hour.”

“I wouldn’t mind if you’re offering” Cecily says, peering round the door and Lizzie shoots her a look but sets out three mugs anyway, desperate to avoid her mother’s gaze and occupy her shaking hands.

“Coffee then? Or we could have breakfast! I’m sure I could whip up scrambled eggs or something-“

“No I’m fine. We both know I’m not here to chit-chat anyway. Let me see how bad this is.”

She looks up for the first time, meeting her mother’s eyes which give nothing away. Years of camera flashes does that to a person.

She just nods, heart in her mouth. Unwrapping the towel she feels the cold air on her neck where her hair would’ve sat just yesterday, a yellow cloak of warmth tickling her back. Her mother gasps, a perfect row of white teeth setting down on her lower lip. She swoops round her in a perfect circle, surveying the ends, the roots, tutting softly. It’s a much more downplayed reaction than she was expecting which only fills her with fear.

“Well! It could be worse I suppose. It doesn’t look so… butchered.”

“Cecily tried to tidy up the ends.”

“Really? I know Cece’s good with her makeup but my God can we not leave this to the professionals?”

“It’s a little late for that I have to say.”

They both let out a shuddery laugh, shattering the frosty atmosphere. Lizzie fills the mugs to the brim and sets them out on the table, the two of them sat across from each other. She feels her mother’s eyes on her as she cups her steaming mug in her hands and looks up. They try to smile, mother and daughter, so often compared in their looks now look worlds apart.There is a brief pause, one Lizzie isn’t sure she wants filled.

“I- Listen love, I don’t mean to get on at you but I can’t have you coming to the gala looking like that. Your grandmother will never let me hear the end of it if you turn up looking like a member of the Adams Family and if she doesn’t drop dead with the shock of it, well let’s just say I’ll be surprised.”

Lizzie reaches up to grasp the raw ends of her hair and grabs a fistful. _The gala._

“You didn’t forget did you?” Her mother asks, eyes wide. “Don’t answer that. Stupid question.” Lizzie looks down at the table, breathing hard.

“Well,” she exhales, fingertips to forehead. “Tonight is really important, I’m sure you’ll remember your father saying. He’s finally struck this deal that has us plain sailing again so it’s imperative that tonight goes smoothly. It is, quite frankly, make or break for us.”

How could she possibly forget? This deal, between the House of York and their greatest rival the French Valois firm, was set to end years of legal dispute and fierce competition between the two companies. She knows all too well how important it is. How could she be oblivious to the strain it and the family’s more… _personal_ differences had caused her father? Uncle George jabbing him from the back for not being given what he thought he was owed while Uncle Richard didn’t even try to hide the fury when her father had reeled off the terms of agreement, grumbling about honour and “the lack of it in this family”. Compromise, Lizzie thought, was not a concept the Yorks could grapple with.

Red hot shame spreads through her face and neck, like a guilty child caught in the act. _Got you._ It is not her mother's tone of voice that makes her stomach ache but seeing her composure slip, the thought of everyone seeing her like this. What will they say? _What will they say?_

“I remember Mum. God I’m sorry.”

“We all do stupid things, God knows I had by the time I was your age. It’s just… not great timing.”

_Understatement of the century._

“What am I going to do with the lot of you?” she asks after an age of silence. “What in God’s name possessed you?”

None of the excuses she and Cecily considered earlier come to mind. Guilt pools at the bottom of her stomach, makes her tea taste like poison.

“Your father has an interview with The Financial Times and something like this could throw the whole thing off course. People are so quick to jump on him for anything, to bring us down. This could be all it takes for Lancaster to get ahead.”

_She knows. She knows. Why does she think she doesn’t know?_

Another long exhale, drawn out like the workings of a curse.

“The only thing to do is get it fixed. I’m going to book you an appointment at Rose en Soleil for later this morning. We can go out for coffee afterwards and pick up your dress. Maybe get a facial or something.” When she doesn’t respond, she throws the one thing she’d rather die than hear in the conversation. “Charles will be there and-”

Charles, the suave businessman she has remotely no interest in but her father thinks she ought to have an interest in. Bane of her life. Obnoxious to a t with a French accent that makes her want to punch a wall. There are a lot of words for what Charles is, most of them swears. Maybe, she thinks with a flicker of a smile, her hair would frighten him away.

Her hair… Glancing at her reflection in the window, the choppy strands by her chin something much softer. Suddenly it didn’t appear quite so awful.

“Lizzie?”

“Mm. Yeah, sounds good.”

“I didn’t even say anything.” She looks beyond her hair now, searches her eyes across the table. “Are you alright, love? It should’ve been the first thing I asked but I just went straight for the obvious. We haven't really spoken properly since before your birthday...”

It is a good question, one Lizzie isn’t sure she can answer. So she just nods instead.

Her mother purses her lips and scans her again, reluctant to press. She reaches a hand across the table and squeezes gently.

“We’ll talk about it when you're ready. I’ll text you your appointment time later. And thank you for the tea, darling. You always know how to make it just right.”

And then she’s gone as if she never was with a kiss pressed to the top of her head. Cecily appears again when the front door shuts, eyebrows raised.

“You okay?”

“Don’t,” she groans, resting her aching head on the table.

“Alright then. Thanks for the tea.”

_That’s the only thing I can do right. Bloody tea._

“How could I have been so stupid?” she eventually blurts out as Cecily bursts open a pack of digestives, completely unbothered. The potential headlines play out on a sickening reel in her head: “White Rose Rebelling?” “A Thorn In Her Side?” “Future Looks Dim For House of York As Lizzie York Goes Off The Rails: Photo Exclusive!" 

“Hey, I’ve got my fair share of the blame,” Cecily says, offering out a biscuit which Lizzie accepts. “I think I remember trying to convince you to go bright green?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised.”

A beat passes, the two of them munching thoughtfully.

“And _Charles_ ,” she groans, slouching low in her seat. “I can’t force conversation with him tonight, let alone for the rest of my life.”

“Don’t you worry Lizzie. We’ll find you someone before Charles gets the chance to say ‘je t’aime’, guarantee it.”

This, they both know, is something that cannot be guaranteed. All Lizzie can do is keep everything crossed that God decides to send someone her way before there’s an oversized jewel on her ring finger.

“For now, let’s take the next hour or so to think on our bad choices and finish up this pack of digestives and then you’re going to do what Mum says and try and make something of today."

Lizzie lifts a hand to the brutal shock of her hair, uneven and choppy, searching for something to hold onto. The overground train's muffled roar. Commuters voices floating up from outside into the kitchen, wail of traffic lights, stop, wait, go. Weak winter morning sun hitting the window. 

“Why do you always have to be right?”

“I’m named after Grandma, of course I’m always right. Now come on,” she says, stuffing a hoodie from the laundry bag into her empty arms. “Better wear this so the paps don’t spot you on your way out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Vaguely historical notes:**
> 
> I decided to make Lizzie a Pisces because, historically, she was. Before the introduction of the Gregorian calendar, under which her birthday (11th February) falls under Aquarius, Lizzie would have been a Pisces according to the Julian calendar. I have always thought of her as one regardless!
> 
> Don't worry, our favourite Welshman will be here next chapter. This fic is just a bit of fun for those of us who love these two and probably isn't my best but it's been sitting on my laptop for months now and I just can't look at it anymore. So here you go! Ignore any mistakes/typos etc that you see, I edited this very quickly at stupid o'clock in the morning and will go back and fix them soon (and probably add a paragraph or two let's be real here).
> 
> For now, I hope you enjoyed and please leave me a comment if you have any thoughts. As always you can find me on Tumblr @richardgloucesters if you want to talk there instead - muah! x


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What was it Shakespeare wrote? she thinks stone-faced, mind cast back to some dim and distant classroom. _You have such a February face, so full of frost, of storm and cloudiness._

Lizzie knows leaving her flat without an umbrella in mid-winter is next-level kind of stupid, but she does it anyway. Rooting through her purse at the station and finding her oyster card missing is even worse, but she can’t bring herself to mind. The sleet and wind that whips round her cheeks as she trudges up from the underground tries its best, the sky above grey, overcast and full of bad thoughts. What was it Shakespeare wrote? she thinks stone-faced, mind cast back to some dim and distant classroom. _Y_ _ou have such a February face, so full of frost, of storm and cloudiness._

It is a relief to lose herself amongst commuters who hold phones to their ears and cancel meetings with no mercy, complain about delayed buses crawling along gritted roads way behind schedule and howl when the wind picks up, pushing up their brollies in retaliation. She wonders what secret it is that they’re in on, like it is a game of Chinese whispers where she is the final recipient left with the garbled nonsense. Her fellow Londoners walk with purpose, a final destination in sight: an office, a tube station, home. Why is she the only one with eyes trained to her feet, only looking up for incoming traffic and the safe wave of the green man? _Go_.

But where to?

The pavements ahead shine, waterfalls gushing from gutters above and overflowing drains turning the streets into rushing rivers. Speeding cars spray screeds of water over innocent bystanders, squeals of _Christ_ and _For fuck’s sake_ from all directions. She charges ahead, eyes streaming against the bracing wind. Her misery is relentless, soaks to the bone and sticks to the skin. At one crossing she catches her reflection in the puddle beneath her feet, eyes wide and mouth hanging open. She distorts it with the toe of her shoe and darts out just before the lights change. She quickly resolves to keep her eyes above ground.

London is a gift of a place when you long to disappear. Nobody raises an eyebrow if you let a tear slide down your cheek (which she definitely doesn’t) and it is easily masked by the rain that follows it. People’s attention spans are short, regardless. They are distracted by trap music blaring out of a car window, the next train to catch, glaring ads for the newest West End show rotating on the side of a double-decker bus or throngs of tourists swanning around in ‘I Heart London’ t-shirts. It is easy, really, to feel lost here, for all its movement and life tries to argue otherwise.

Not lost completely though. In amongst the art houses and upmarket cafes, she finds her feet have taken her to the _Rose en Soleil_ , gold lettering glittering on pristine glass beneath a window box full of roses.

Although she’s been coming here since she was small enough to sit in her mother’s lap, Lizzie has never felt more out of place inside the sleek salon, leather stools tucked under vanities and those sat on them involved in everything from acting to modelling to politics. Feet squelching in her trainers and hair like rat tails plastered against her temples, the young girl at the reception desk looks a little frightened to see her, eyeing her ensemble warily.

“Elizabeth York, here for eleven?” she says anyway, trying to channel some of her mother’s confidence. _Eyes up, darling. Smile._ She is painfully self-conscious of the footprints she’s trailed in, the fat drops of water dripping onto the floor.

At her name the girl’s eyes widen in recognition as she gapes at the state of her hair and then flips furiously through the appointment book.

Before she has to face an interrogation, a familiar face darts out from the backroom carrying curling tongs and an armful of hairspray. To her relief, it is Giovanni, her mother’s longtime friend and stylist.

“Lizzie, my pretty rose!” he croons and kisses her cheeks, same old Italian warmth she has known since Saturday mornings as a child, propped up beside the coat racks, bored stiff and flicking through _HELLO!_ ’s and _OK!_ ’s as he fussed over her mother’s split ends.

“I thought I heard a familiar voice. Your mother told me about your little-” he reaches out to gently tug her hood away from her face “-experiment.”

“It’s awful isn’t it?” she mutters, feeling as though she ought to hang her head in shame for committing the most atrocious of hair crimes.

He chuckles.

“Well your mother certainly said it was and I have to say when she told me what you’d done, my heart broke in two.” He is the picture of melodrama, bringing his hands laden with curling tongs to his heart with a thump. “Truly it did! Thinking of your beautiful hair gone? Just like that? Poof!” He snaps his fingers accordingly. “It brought a tear to my eye to tell you the truth, it did. But,“ he holds her at arm’s length, “and please for the life of me don’t tell you mother I said this, I think you can pull it off.”

“ _Really_?”

“Yes! Have I ever told a lie? No! Now that I have seen you I have a vision. You are blessed with your father’s bone structure and your mother’s beautiful complexion. Yes,” he decides, tilting her chin this way and that, “just needs a little... finesse. Don’t you worry little cherub, you’re in safe hands! that I promise you.”

She is stumped by his light-speed sentiments and it takes a long second for the meaning of his words to settle in. When they do, she is utterly overwhelmed.

“Thank you Giovanni, you’re an angel!” she decides, throwing her arms around his neck. “Yes, sent from God himself. You ought to have a halo!”

He takes her hand and squeezes it, amused by the musings of a thespian.

“Hah! I have seen worse Lizzie. Although…” he pauses “yours is certainly up there!” Gaging her reaction he roars, patting her hand. “I kid I kid!” Then dropping it, he looks a little bemused.

“But you are here a little early are you not? Up with the larks you are!”

“What do you mean?”

“Your appointment is for eleven, no? It is only,” he glances at his silver wristwatch, “just coming up to ten my dear.”

She looks at her own, startled. In between the drop-in visit from her mother and the guilt twisting at her stomach with every passing second, she’d rushed out of the house at the insistence of Cecily and her conscience. Going home, she glances at the miserable passers by, isn’t really an option and the thought of sitting in a Costa and drinking syrupy coffee to kill time makes her want to retch.

He sees her anguish and gives her a reassuring smile.

“No matter, no matter. I have my hands full with Ms Beaufort just now. You sit yourself down in the waiting room and I will bring you some tea and lemon to warm you up, or maybe something stronger if you like.” He gives her his best smile. “Cheer up, you will be in excellent company.”

At this she raises an eyebrow.

“There is a _very_ handsome stranger in there looking a little lonesome. You simply must go and keep him company. And Sarah,” he turns to the receptionist who has been openly goggling Lizzie all the time, jaw hanging open and fingers itching to text a friend about it, “stop your gawping. You’ll catch flies.”

Patting Lizzie’s cheek, he darts back to the woman in the chair while the shame-faced receptionist excuses herself to the backroom, and all the while Lizzie stands a little dazed and unsure. _Handsome… what?_

Ducking into the cloakroom, deserted apart from someone hidden behind a broadsheet, her first intention is to dry off. Pulling her jumper over her head and hanging it on the rack, she looks at herself in the illuminated mirror which only highlights the shock of her awful dye job. She slumps, utterly defeated, into one of the throne-like chairs like a king just lost a decisive battle.

For the first time all morning, she allows herself to breathe without a weight sitting on her chest. She hones in on the rain thrashing against the glass and gnaws on her fingernails painted for the very purpose of not biting them until she tastes the toxic nail polish and grimaces accordingly. _Awful_ _habit_ , she concludes. _Must add to list of things to stop doing after ‘drunk-dying hair’._

As she stares at yet another woman fighting a losing battle with her umbrella, she contemplates writing something, fingers brushing the spine of the little notebook full of poems in her purse. The moment is right, she thinks, and she has plenty of time to kill. A couple of images string together in her head, appear before her eyes, and she scrambles for her pen before they disappear, fingertips tingling with anticipation. She uncaps her pen, but before she can, there is a sudden rustling of paper that breaks the quiet in the little room and she snaps her head round to see its source, alarmed to find someone talking to her.

“I have to say,” a young man starts, folding up his paper as if it is second nature to him and speaking as though she would have any interest in what he’s about to say, “it’s a bit of a shock to see the blonde Elizabeth York suddenly a brunette.” And then almost as an afterthought, “And I’m not really someone for keeping up with celebrity fashion.”

She lets her bag slump to the floor in surprise, notebook peeking out of its folds, pen rolling far beneath her chair. _The ‘handsome stranger’_. For a moment she cannot decide whether it is fatigue or the boldness of his statement that has her struck dumb. Lizzie is used to being recognised but his snarky remark, to employ a favourite phrase of Cecily’s, takes the piss. The easy option would be to throw him a nasty look and plug in her earphones, but something about his expression stops her from doing so: Inquisitive, but not in the hungry way most people are around her.

“One” she says, with all intentions of ending the conversation, the lines she was poised to write dying in her throat. “This isn’t even close to brunette and two, you seem like you kind of are.”

(She also doesn’t understand why her words don’t come out quite as viciously as she wants them to.)

“One for keeping up with hair trends?” he quirks an eyebrow. “Yeah okay, you got me.”

Despite herself, she is smiling, albeit reluctantly.

“Henry Tudor,” he says, pushing up his glasses and holding out a hand. “It’s only fair you know my name too.”

Tudor. His name sounds as though it may have passed through her father’s lips, some business partner or past associate, but no face comes to mind and certainly not his, like blowing the dust off an antique but not quite being able to make out the inscription. Head full of questions, she accepts his expectant hand not really knowing why, conscious that her fingers are terribly cold.

“Jesus, you’re freezing. Here,” he snatches up his paper, stands and motions towards his chair. “You sit by the radiator.”

“Oh, you don’t have to-“ She’s mumbling now, suddenly painfully shy. Embarrassment at being where she is, looking like she does. Why is he being so _nice_?

“No I insist. You’ll get ill if you don’t dry off. Didn’t you bring a brolly?”

She opens her empty palms in a symbol meaning _What do you think?_

“Ah, yeah. Stupid question, sorry,” he says, alternating from standing on the sides of his feet shifting his weight back on the heels.

It is then that Giovanni decides to pop his head around the doorway, smiling broadly with a steaming teacup in one hand and a white towel tucked under his arm.

“Ah making friends I see!” he cries, looking at the two of them with a glimmer in his eye and if she wasn’t already squirming, she definitely is now. She presses her lips together in a thin line and stares at her sodden shoes, wishing the rain would wash her away in a rush of wet, sticky embarrassment.

 _One way or another_ , she thinks, meeting Giovanni’s wide smile, _Mum is going to hear about this_.

“For you my dear” he says, presenting Lizzie with a towel still warm from the dryer and the promised cup of tea which she gratefully accepts.

“Anything you need Mr Tudor? A paper? More coffee?”

“ _Hck_ \- No, I’m fine. Thank you.” His words are strangled and strange and when she looks at him, she swears he is… laughing? Yes, he is really laughing, shoulders shaking under his shirt and she can only clench her jaw together to keep from doing the same.

“I will leave you two to it then!”

Then with a satisfied _hm_ _!_ their intruder is gone almost as soon as he came, humming a familiar tune under his breath. There is a still moment before Lizzie meets Henry’s eye and the two of them collapse into splutters of laughter, slightly stilted, but magical all the same. She hasn’t felt this light for what feels like years, covering her mouth with the back of her hand to stifle the whoops she can’t contain, the hilarity of the day never seeming to cease.

Once Henry’s quiet wheezes finally stop, he offers her his seat again, and this time she takes it without resistance, a quiet _thank you_ and _no_ _problem_ exchanged, the two of them settling in side by side on a pair of thrones.

Silence creeps in again, this one a little more pressing than the last. Henry fusses with his paper, smoothing the front page and crossing and re-crossing his legs over one another. As Lizzie wraps her hair in the warm towel, the tea rich on her tongue, the honey tangy and sweet, she resolves to make a little conversation. After all, like Giovanni said, she is ‘making friends’.

“You know,” she starts, encouraged by his earlier forwardness, “for someone not that interested in hairstyling, you are sitting in one of the most upmarket hairdressers in London.”

“Well, it takes a lot of effort to keep all this in check” he says, deadpan, motioning to the sandy waves that curl at the high point of his cheekbones. When she doesn’t respond, he allows the corner of his mouth to turn upwards, letting out a dry laugh that could be sardonic if his nose didn’t scrunch up the way it does.

It occurs to her that Giovanni was right, he _is_ handsome but not in the drop-dead gorgeous way the men her mum had tried to set her up with in the past were. Is it the sharp tip of his nose or the cut of his jaw that means she can’t look away even if she wanted to?

“No,” he says after a while, a thin-lipped smile on his face. “I’m here with my mum. She’s the one who likes to take care of her hair and I like to treat her every now and again. Me?” He raises an eyebrow. “Not so much.”

And clearly she does. The woman Henry nods to through the doorway is polished and put together with a dark bob and swipe of red lipstick to match a serious gaze not too dissimilar from his. She chats easily with Giovanni and the young girl styling her, taking a dainty sip from a china teacup every so often. Lizzie wracks her brains, desperately trying to recall any of her father’s lectures on future associates and competitors. _Beaufort_. Why did all these names sound so important, like they ought to be underlined in red pen?

“That’s really kind of you,” Lizzie says, not an inch of sarcasm left in her.

“Yeah well, it’s the least I can do. She’s given me everything.”

Oh she wasn’t expecting _that_ , a goofy smile revealing crooked little teeth that disappears all too quickly. She thinks she’d like to see it again.

“What about you?”

“Hm?” she says, half-lost to sleep-deprivation and the glimpse of his smile.

“What are you doing here?”

She’d almost managed to forget. She isn’t here for a nice chat with a familiar feeling stranger over a cup of tea. No, she is, in fact, in deep shit.

She scrunches up her face, pointing to her hair wrapped up in the towel.

“I know, but what’s the story behind it? You don’t make that kind of move without thinking about it.”

“You can, I did.” Her eyes flick to the floor, stinging with exhaustion. Why _had_ she done it? It’s the question she’s been toying with all morning. Boredom and having a little too much to drink wasn’t quite enough to explain it. But it isn’t for a stranger to know, much less one with the nerve to ask.

“Sorry, I know I’m prying,” he says, shrugging his shoulders back. “Just habit I s’ppose.”

She glances up at him, narrowing her eyes.

“I’m a journalist, you see.”

Her breath hitches and she immediately straightens her spine, crossing one leg over the other.

_Oh fucking hell._

He seems to have realised his mistake, clawing a hand through his hair, dropping forward in his chair.

“Hey I didn’t mean – I’m not going to _say_ anything! You must know that?”

She angles her entire body away from him, eyes trained the window, desperately trying to remember any of the PR training she’s had drilled into her over the years. It sounds ridiculous coming from him – ‘say anything’ – like she’s a crying child and he’s about to go and tattle on her but it’s much, much more than that. If only he knew.

“I’ve only known you about five minutes so I wouldn’t say I _have_ to know anything about you actually.”

_Ah, there’s the edge I’d been looking for earlier._

“Listen, I-“ he stumbles for the right words, leaning forward on his elbows. “I don’t mean to sound like a pretentious twat but I value integrity. I could never do anything of the sort.” And then a little indignantly, “Some of us do have morals you know.”

“Not many of you,” she says, thinking of the columnists who have always had it out for her family. _Goldigger, witch, serpent,_ all names printed beneath her mother’s pictures over the years. _Fraud, backstabber, sleazy_ , all terms never far from her father. No, the media had never been kind to the Yorks.

Henry lets out a little huff of air, adjusting his glasses. “I can imagine. But my point is,” he says, blue eyes searching for hers, “I’m an editor in economics, not a… _showbiz_ column.”

The contempt he has for the word is so obvious Lizzie wants to burst out laughing but she doesn’t. Instead she turns back towards him slowly, eyes not entirely meeting his.

“I’m sorry Elizabeth. I’ve just always been one to ask questions, stick my nose in where it’s not wanted. I can’t apologise enough, truly.”

 _Elizabeth_? Her name sounded almost French when he said it and the slightly stiff apology had a lilt of… Welsh? His accent is eclectic, as though he has picked up phrases from here and there. She cannot place him, a man of nowhere and everywhere.

She lets the apology mull for a long moment, gnawing on the inside of her cheek. Without thinking and with everything to lose, she jerks out her hand like she’s watched her father do a thousand times before, whether begrudgingly or with good faith. A truce.

Hands up, palms facing him. _I surrender_.

(Besides, those in lost waters like the two of them must make root somewhere and this seems as good a place as any.)

“Two handshakes in one day? That’s a first.” Henry says, bemused but accepting the gesture. The warmth of his hand only reassures her that she’s doing the right thing.

“I’m sorry,” she mutters, with all the grace and decorum she can muster, almost hearing her grandmothers chastising her over her shoulder. “Bad morning.”

“No, I’m the one who should be sorry-”

“Oh please _don’t_ ,” she groans. “I’ve had enough of grovelling and it’s not a good look on anyone. And,” she adds in a smaller voice, as if murmuring a secret no one ought to know but them, “Call me Lizzie. No one calls me Elizabeth except when they’re angry with me.”

“Which I’m most definitely not.”

A bubble of laughter catches in her throat, his warm skin on hers, as she allows herself to smile.

“I’m glad.”

*

In the following silence, Lizzie allows herself to get a proper look at Henry Tudor, a man who she knows very little about but who she imagines knows an awful lot about her. There is something suave about him, a reek of airport lounges and expensive aftershave that implies his hair ought to be slicked back and the jacket on his chair pressed flat. On closer inspection, the fingerprint smudge on the rim of his glasses, the rumpled shirt that looks as if it’s been pulled it straight from the wash and the slightly geeky dragon cuff links which he twiddles with his free hand seem to cancel all that out. The way he talks about his mum is another. The flicker of a smile he was too quick to cover up.

“Where are you from?” she asks before she can stop herself, nearly biting her tongue with the effort.

He catches her eyes on his cufflinks and looks a little sheepish.

“It’s a good question. I’ve travelled around a bit. I moved to Brittany with my uncle when I was about fourteen and came back here a few years ago. Explains the dodgy French.”

_He speaks French?_

“Just your uncle?” she says instead of _Say something._

“He’s more like a father to me really, always has been.”

“Still. That must have been… lonely for you.”

It is difficult for her to imagine not being surrounded by a sprawling and ever-expanding family. Even with her father travelling frequently for work, the thought of not being able to pop home to see her mum for a cuppa and a chat or opening the front door to a cry of “Lizzie!” and one of her sisters tugging her hair with a chubby fist is so foreign that she’s never even entertained it. Thinking about being separated by a channel and miles of water makes her heart ache. For all the Yorks are divided, they are nothing if not close.

“Honestly? It was hard, me and my mum being so far apart. I was always desperate for news from home so took to sending me letters and postcards which sort of became my lifeline. Sometimes if I was lucky, she’d send a book or two along with them. A lot of Arthurian legends, knights and dragons – you get the picture.” He glances at his cufflinks as though they might breathe fire. _An Arthurian?_ She tries to picture him in plated armour, saddled on a white horse, charging into battle, a golden crown nestled in his hair. Despite his lean build, it’s not a foreign image.

“I spent so much time waiting on her letters that she started to call me a blackbird.”

He looks down at his lap with a hidden smile and Lizzie smiles too, picturing a smaller Henry waiting by the letterbox, picking up scraps of information and storing them safely like a blackbird bringing titbits back to its nest. 

“I loved hearing stories so much that I turned it into my career and, well, here I am.”

Lizzie realises that, like her father and uncles, he speaks with a kind of ease that comes from constant uprooting, the knowledge that you may be up and gone in one minute so making idle conversation is all you have to anchor you to dry land. It is oddly endearing, and he, like them, seems as though he’d have a lot of interesting stories. He continues, tone shifting:

“My family is tangled up with the Lancastrian firm here and – well, I’m sure you’re aware – there were a lot of problems that made it difficult for me to stay in England. My mum wanted the best for me so she sent me away for school-”

 _Lancaster._ Like a flash of red, spilt wine on a white blouse. His exile backstory suddenly comes into form and she could kick herself how long it took her to make the connection. ‘Ms Beaufort’, Margaret. Her mother’s associate in passing who she liked to refer to as the cleverest woman she’s ever known. So _this_ was Henry Tudor, the rose who never bloomed bright like the rest, forgotten in a throng of thorns. A future Lancastrian CEO, thanks to many happy coincidences which her father loved to laugh about. _If that’s the competition Lizzie, I think we’ll see the House of York soar when you’re in charge_. What on earth was he doing here, fiddling absent-mindedly with the little silver dragons, wearing a crumpled shirt and talking about a career in journalism? Now that he’s in front of her though, with much softer edges than originally appeared, she has no desire to take him down.

He catches the surprise on her face and lets out a dry laugh, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

“Yes. It’s my mother who has plans for me to take over the firm but really, I’ve not much interest. I’ve lived away for so long I hardly know a soul but my mother and uncle Jasper.”

She looks doubtful and he leans back in his chair, shrugging.

“I know, I know. Why _wouldn’t_ you want to be running one of the biggest investment firms in the country? It’s just, I’d like to forge my own path in the meantime, not the one that’s decided for me.”

She is seized by a surge of understanding, gratitude almost. She wants to reach out and clutch his arm. _Someone else feels what I do._

She is knocked askew for the second time when he asks, sounding much smaller,

“Do you not… feel the same?”

She realises, meeting his earnest blue eyes, it’s the first time anyone has thought to ask. And she realises that in Henry Tudor she has found a confidant for all the things she cannot admit to her father, cannot unload onto her mother and cannot confess to her sisters, the comfort of which the silent pages in her journal could never hope to provide.

“I do. I don’t know about you but, for me, it’s always been this, inevitable _thing_ from as far back as I can remember. It used to seem so far away that I never really liked to think about it and, now that it’s nearly here, being completely honest?” She feels a weight like a bulky paperweight on her chest shift, allowing the papers trapped below to scatter free. “I don’t want much part in it. It’s not that I’m not grateful for it, not in the least! I am, I’m _so_ lucky and fortunate to be where I am, who I am. It’s just, for me, it’s just not… not what I want to devote my life to.” She flounders for the right words, snatching for the papers flying free.

“I know it doesn’t look like it, but my father is miserable. What the press call a taste for excess, we call a coping mechanism. It’s cost him dear and,” she is reluctant to point fingers, to blame the man she looks up to most in the whole world, “Sometimes us too. The thought of what would happen if it fell into somebody else’s hands scares me, though.” Her uncles loom over her shoulders, greedy hands, already filled, reaching for more. “Scares me enough into listening to what he teaches me so hopefully I can do some good. Everything else,” she thinks of filled notebooks stashed under her bed, torn rejection letters piled up in her waste paper basket, “comes second.”

“Duty comes first,” Henry finishes.

She nods. It’s honest. It’s the most vulnerable she’s been beyond the thick pages of her journal in months. She is trembling a little, toe tapping on the tiled floor. She’s forgotten why she’s here and she couldn’t care less. Henry is listening, really listening, tilting his head as though toying with an idea, tossing it this way and that.

“To play Devil’s advocate here: Duty to what? Something I- _We_ never asked for? Some might ask what duty has to do with any of _this_ ,” he says gesturing to their surroundings.

“More than you know. Besides, what does duty have to do with journalism?”

“Not a whole lot, if I’m being completely honest.” He’s grinning now, sat all the way back in his seat.

_Cheeky bastard._

“Don’t you ever get bored writing about stocks and shares and big companies?”

“Never. It’s what makes the world go round isn’t it?”

She gives him a long, hard look.

“Alright! Sometimes it can… drag a little.”

“So you’re telling me you’d never consider swapping for all those fun stories, local stuff like…” she ponders a moment. “Tigers escaping from zoos?”

“Christ no. I did enough of that kind of stuff when I interned as a teen.”

“Pity. I’d much rather hear about the tigers. Would you reconsider?”

“I don’t think no is a strong enough answer.”

“Oh but _why_?” she says, desperately trying to keep a straight face.

“Because I’m primarily interested in and qualified to write about the state of the economy! But I’m a junior – very junior – editor so I could be. If you wanted me to.”

“Please. That is something I’d love to see.”

The corner of his mouth twitches, the sheer ridiculousness, cracking his masked resolve.

“I think we’ve spoken far too much about me. What do you do, Lizzie?”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t mean all the kind of rubbish you’re made to spout in interviews. That’s not anything a real person ever says or does. I mean – who is Lizzie York? I’m assuming you’re at uni, yeah?”

She nods, sitting up a little.

“I’m studying English, much to my father’s horror. I applied for business and management thinking it’d please him but I didn’t last the year. Practicality isn’t really my forte.”

Henry leans forward, intrigued.

“And how’s that going?”

It’s too much, this entire encounter. She’s telling him more than she tells her mum, her sisters, her friends even. But she can’t stop speaking and she likes it. She really does. She forgets that she has only known him just under an hour and _bloody hell_ she does seem to be forgetting a lot in his company-

“It’s hard work but I love it. I forget how much sometimes until I get to read something new.”

“Such as…?”

This is dangerous territory – once she gets started she’ll never stop.

“The Romantics. Modernism. Anything. Gothic even. A couple years down the line and I still haven’t figured out my specialism. Anything you put in front of me, I’ll probably read, just give me the time.” She’s practically glowing, pink spots forming on her cheeks.

“Even say, those trash mags over there?” he says, nodding to the thick stack of tabloids on the table.

She ruffles herself up, the picture of indignance.

“You’re telling me you don’t have a HELLO! subscription? And you call yourself a journalist.”

He shakes his head, shoulders shaking a little under his shirt.

“I’m assuming that journalists also read a lot?” she asks.

“You’d assume wrong, actually. I read a lot but what it is isn’t exactly stimulating. Most of the time I’m trying to keep up with whatever disaster politics finds itself in which is mostly in other papers. Like your father’s deal!” he says, suddenly chirpy. “Very exciting news is it not?”

“Oh sure, yeah. Very exciting.”

Her attempt at enthusiasm sounds empty and flat.

“You sound _exhilarated_ at the prospect,” he says, raising an eyebrow.

“Well, to be honest, it means something entirely different for me personally than it does in business terms.”

He starts to say something but whatever it is he never expresses. She can feel his eyes linger on her, eyes wide with concern. She touches the joint on her ring finger, picturing an ugly ring just below it, too tight at the band, cutting into the skin. They sit together in silence, lost in thought, until Henry catches the forgotten little notebook splayed on the floor.

He motions to it with a jerk of the head.

“You’re a writer?”

She looks down at her feet, momentarily mortified. This is closer to her heart, perhaps too close. A part of herself she has never shared with anyone but Cecily. She stuffs it back into her bag, flushed in the face, and kicks it underneath her chair.

“I don’t know if I’d go as far as calling myself a writer but I do write.”

“Anyone who cares enough to pick up a pen and write what they feel is a writer in my eyes.”

She cannot help but look at him with admiration.

“What kind of things do you write if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Poetry. Fiction when I have the time, but I never do, so mostly poetry.”

“Are you published?”

“Sort of. I’ve submitted for various competitions and nothing has ever made it to print. It’s all too close to my heart to ever be shared I think.”

“Pity. I always think the best poems are the ones that settle in your chest.”

The familiar tug of understanding lurches at her heart. She smiles at him, a real corner-tugging smile.

“So do I.”

She waits another long moment, sensing he has more to say. He drops down to his elbows again, shifting his weight forward.

“There will always be an audience out there for whatever you’re writing, I promise. Part of it is just taking the plunge and putting something out there for other people to consume.” He is so sincere she could weep. “Taking the risk.”

“That is the York family motto,” she quips, thinking of her father seizing what he thought was his, stopping at nothing to get it. “For better or for worse.”

“Typical York” he tuts and she laughs, holding a hand to her mouth. “It’s maybe the one thing I admire about my family, that despite all their faults, they’re never afraid to take a risk. My mother is no exception.”

She can’t help but smile when he speaks about his mother with such fondness.

“And what about you, do you take risks?”

She raises an eyebrow. _Seriously_?

“If I didn’t take risks, do you think I’d be sitting here looking like this?” Her neck suddenly feels naked without a yellow sheet to hide beneath.

“No, I know. And I admire that. But what are you going to do about it? You obviously wanted a change so are you going to go back to the way things were or are you going to take another?”

“What do you-?”

“I like it, Lizzie. Really.”

A voice sing-songs from outside, like a mother calling their child for dinner.

“Lizzie? I am ready for you now!”

They look at one another in surprise, the weight of the unsaid heavy in-between them.

“I suppose that means my mother’s finished. Shall we?”

They start to organise their things, Lizzie stacking their empty cups and saucers, Henry smoothing the creases in his suit jacket. He crouches suddenly, reaching beneath her chair to retrieve the notebook and pen, holds them out to her expectantly. A ‘thank you’ forms on her lips, and she has every intention of taking them, but finds herself pressing them into his chest instead, feeling her pulse in her fingertips.

“You can keep them for now. Who knows, they might be a more interesting read than any of your political journals.”

He opens his mouth to object, but seeing her resolve, gives her a firm nod, tucking it into his suit pocket. A small act, one of silence. But trust, Lizzie realises, isn’t something that needs to be shouted for all to hear when it is something they both know well enough.

“Of that, I have no doubt.”

He leads her out and she watches him greet his mother, her tiny stature just reaching his shoulders. _Looking lovely, Mum_ he says and Giovanni is pure radiance. _Doesn’t she just!_ Margaret gives her son a look, humoured and pleased all at once as he leans over the counter to pay for her appointment while Lizzie settles into the chair, enthroned in a black sheet. Giovanni says his farewells to the Beaufort-Tudors and fusses with her parting, humming the tune from earlier that she finally recognises: _Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match. Find me a find, catch me a catch._

She catches Margaret in the mirror who gives her a curt nod of recognition, eyes flicking between her son and his acquaintance with mild interest. She doesn’t even flinch at the state of her hair. But after all, Lizzie thinks, it would take a lot to startle Margaret Beaufort.

As the bell above the door rings out, Henry’s tucks his mother’s arm under his own as they turn out into the street, mother and son side by side. The rain has stopped, spots of cold sunshine breaking through the clouds and Lizzie looks back in the reflection for one last glimpse of the exile soon to be lost to her. Henry does too, raising a hand in farewell, her notebook safe in his pocket, one last crooked smile for her.

She thinks she’d like to see it again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Vaguely historical notes:**
> 
> It is said that Elizabeth of York was something of a poet. The poem 'My heart is set upon a lusty pin' which I adore has long been attributed to her and the first stanza goes as follows:
> 
> My heart is set upon a lusty pin;  
> I pray to Venus of good continuance,  
> For I rejoice the case that I am in,  
> Deliver’d from sorrow, annex’d to pleasance,  
> Of all comfort having abundance;  
> This joy and I, I trust, shall never twin  
> My heart is set upon a lusty pin.
> 
> I really hope you enjoy this chapter. Let me tell you, this has been _months_ in the making so it feels unbelievably good to finally get it off my chest. It's come out just after their anniversary too which feels very fitting <3 Please let me know what you think, it really does keep me going! As always, you can find me on Tumblr @richardgloucesters if you'd like to chat there too. Muah! x


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